TRIUMPH OF LIE

The killing of a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother by federal officials was certainly a tragedy and almost certainly a crime. But the administration’s response is something else: a demonstration that, in Trump’s America, regurgitating obvious lies is how his followers and enablers prove that they belong

- Stephen Holmes

When US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared that a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother had been gunned down by federal officials because she was committing “an act of domestic terrorism,” she was not making a factual claim. She was seeking a megalomaniac’s approval.

Her boss, US President Donald Trump, soon rewarded her zeal, posting on Truth Social that the victim “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.” Vice President JD Vance then dutifully proclaimed that “the gaslighting is off the charts,” dismissing all criticism as lies.

The irresistible allure of sycophancy had kicked in. To maintain the leader’s favour, his underlings desperately competed to see who could most thoroughly abase themselves on TV. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, having watched multiple videos of the shooting captured by bystanders, called the administration’s claims “bullshit.” That epithet resonates, but it is not the whole story.

A distinguished philosopher once drew a sharp distinction between the liar and the bullshitter. The liar, he argued, is paradoxically oriented toward truth: to lie successfully, one must know what is true and deliberately say the opposite. The bullshitter, by contrast, is indifferent to whether his statements are true or false; what matters is only the effect on the audience. Because the liar still operates within a framework where truth matters, lying presupposes a grudging respect for the category it violates. Bullshit, by ignoring the distinction between truth and falsity altogether, is a more corrosive enemy of honest exchange and debate.